Episode 7 of ‘House of the Dragon’ Is a Splendid Fantasy Spectacle (2024)

We have a pretty solid structure here at The Ringer as we cover House of the Dragon each week. We follow every episode with a deep dive, a mailbag, power rankings, and plenty of podcasts, and the process starts with an instant reaction from me every Sunday night.

In these initial columns, I generally try to pinpoint a particular theme that resonates or highlight a clever bit of character work while summarizing the episode’s events. This is a rich story, after all, that offers much to analyze: the secret similarities between Team Black and Team Green, Rhaenyra’s political problems, the horrors of war in Westeros.

Yet after Episode 7 of Dragon’s second season, I say to heck with all that nuance: Like the revered King Jaehaerys, this episode ruled. This was a week, first and foremost, to gawk at the spectacle on-screen. House of the Dragon is one of the most expensive shows on TV, and in the penultimate installment of the season, its creators put every dollar of that colossal budget to good use.

Two dazzling dragon scenes bookend an otherwise slow, contemplative Episode 7—the latter dynamic is best symbolized by Alicent’s Ophelia homage in the Kingswood. The greens are quiet this week, and the seemingly imminent battles in the Riverlands don’t commence.

But the blacks initiate dragon action galore on Driftmark and Dragonstone, as Rhaenyra recruits a stable of dragonriders—in an event called the Sowing of the Seeds, in the source text—who can more than replace the departed Rhaenys. First up is Addam of Hull, whom Seasmoke sought out at the end of “Smallfolk.” Episode 7 begins as the new rider and his dragon meet with Rhaenyra and Syrax on the beach.

The episode’s first sounds set the stage for the hour to come: a series of loud dragon squeals, before any words of dialogue, as Seasmoke and Syrax convey the tension in this conversation between a Targaryen queen and a non-Targaryen dragonrider. Their roars continue to punctuate the exchange that follows, as Addam pledges himself to Rhaenyra, and the queen—with a giddy, almost disbelieving smile on her face—realizes the potential to find more unexpected riders who might join her cause.

“Let us raise an army of bastards,” Rhaenyra declares after Mysaria says she knows of at least 80 baseborn Targaryen children scattered throughout King’s Landing. Not everyone approves of this plan. Dragonstone’s dragonkeepers revolt and refuse to participate in the Sowing; Jace castigates his mother for soliciting “mongrels” who might sully the Targaryens’ prestige. “House Targaryen is the blood of the dragon,” he says. “If any may lay claim to it, what are we then?”

Without any real challenger to Vhagar, Rhaenyra rebuts, the alternative is to lose the war. So on the queen’s orders, the plan proceeds. Mysaria and Alyn smuggle a message to Elinda, who puts on her Little Red Riding Hood cloak and spreads the word throughout the capital: Rhaenyra is recruiting Targaryen bastards for the chance to claim a dragon.

Our favorite King’s Landing smallfolk join the procession to Dragonstone, as Ulf gives in to his bar friends’ peer pressure—“Ulf the Dragonlord!” they shout in a prophetic toast—and Hugh defies his wife’s wishes. (That Hugh is a secret cousin of Viserys and Daemon—which would make him the daughter of Saera Targaryen, a daughter of Jaehaerys and Alysanne who ran away from home and became rich while working at a Lysene pleasure house—is a fun Easter egg for readers. That Hugh is motivated to act because his sick daughter died off-screen is a much less successful adaptive choice.)

The real fun begins once the potential army of bastards arrives. Rhaenyra gives them all a pep talk straight out of a sports movie’s locker room, then summons Vermithor—“the largest [dragon] in the world after Vhagar and, perhaps, the most fierce.”

Viewers don’t see Vermithor at first, but the tension crackles because of other atmospheric clues. We hear Vermithor’s slow, stomping approach and can intuit, from the way the characters crane their necks, just how tall Jaehaerys’s old dragon stands. A shadow grows larger behind Rhaenyra—and then Vermithor’s head appears, threatening and snarling and unfathomably huge.

Rhaenyra, familiar with the ways of dragons, calms Vermithor with High Valyrian commands. (His contented throat rumbles sound like the aliens from Arrival.) Her potential recruits, unfamiliar with the beasts of legend, look positively terrified. But it’s their time to shine, Rhaenyra says: “I have nothing more to tell you. It must be the dragon who speaks.”

And Vermithor does—with fire and blood, death and devastation. The Bronze Fury doesn’t consent to be claimed but rather roasts some bastards with gouts of flame, headbutts others, and snatches yet more up to swallow whole. Perhaps Rhaenyra should have let her candidates approach one at a time instead of placing them all in the literal line of fire.

Amid the all-encompassing carnage, Hugh faces the dragon head-on, shouting to divert Vermithor’s attention from a fellow bastard survivor. “Here! Here I am!” the blacksmith yells. “I’m ready. Come on!”

Perhaps impressed by this puny human’s fearlessness and bravado, Vermithor quenches his flames and bows his head—almost with a reptilian smile curving his snout. Thus Hugh claims a dragon.

Meanwhile, Ulf grabs a torch and retreats into the Dragonmont’s depths, in an effort to escape the Fury’s wrath. He soon stumbles into a nest with scaly eggs—but their mother, Silverwing, likes the new man she smells. Thus Ulf claims a dragon, too.

If this spectacular sequence has a weak point, it’s the stark divide between known characters Hugh and Ulf on the one hand and the flock of half-Targaryen redshirts on the other. If Dragon had introduced viewers to another bastard or two earlier in the season, treating them as red herrings who suffered surprise deaths during Vermithor’s rampage, it would have added more tension to the scene. As it was, it seemed rather clear that Hugh and Ulf would escape as newly fledged riders.

Still, the Sowing represented the latest encouraging example of Dragon’s embrace of the fantasy genre, after all the little touches that made the battle at Rook’s Rest—Season 2’s other standout set piece—so thrilling. That point might seem like a given on a show centered on fantastical creatures, but late-stage Game of Thrones didn’t properly appreciate that crucial element of its story. The White Walkers and Long Night 2.0 underwhelmed. Bran and his visions disappeared for long stretches. Many magical loose ends were never resolved. But Dragon is hitting all its fantastical, magical marks thus far.

After passing his dragon audition, Ulf celebrates his new bond with Silverwing by taking a joyride to King’s Landing and back. Though Aemond gives chase atop Vhagar, he sees he’s severely outnumbered on the approach to Dragonstone. “No, Vhagar,” Aemond commands in High Valyrian, and he pulls sharply on the reins. “Flee, Vhagar. Turn around!”

It seems that, for now, the undefeated rider-dragon duo has met its match, both in universe and in terms of on-screen set pieces. Aemond and Vhagar had starred in Dragon’s most remarkable action sequences to this point, but the Sowing may have surpassed the majesty of those earlier scenes.

Dragon’s Season 2 finale will air next week and presumably focus more on story specifics and military maneuvers, with perhaps a cliff-hanger and a compelling setup for Season 3. But for now, viewers can luxuriate in the splendor of the Sowing, which looked and sounded and felt incredible. At its best, House of the Dragon, like Game of Thrones before it, offers unparalleled spectacle on the small screen.

Have HotD questions? To appear in Zach’s weekly mailbag, message him @zachkram on Twitter/X or email him at zach.kram@theringer.com.